strange stuff

From strange crimes to strange celebrity deaths, read all of the latest weird and strange stuff news stories on Newser.com

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Art Fair Visitor Breaks $42K Jeff Koons Sculpture

Woman tapped on the glass balloon dog, and it fell off pedestal

(Newser) - A visitor to an art show in Miami has learned an important lesson about Jeff Koons' famous balloon-dog pieces: They're not real balloons. In fact, they're made of glass and thus fragile. As the Miami Herald reports, a woman tapped on a shiny blue dog atop a pedestal...

He Meant to Go to SYD, Booked Ticket to SDY

Kingsley Burnett intended to go to Australia, wound up in Montana

(Newser) - JFK. LAX. Some airport codes are burned into our collective memory. The airport code for Sydney, Australia, not so much. That turned out to be highly problematic for one New York man, who booked a flight to that city Down Under and planned to depart on a cruise from it....

These Robbers Are Both Under 40
These Robbers
Are Both Under 40
Feb 17, 2023 2:40 PM CST

These Robbers Are Both Under 40

Police say London brothers wore 'extremely lifelike' old men masks during crime

(Newser) - Two brothers who robbed a jewelry store in England were arrested after police spotted the faces of the suspects—in the trunk of their car. George Murphy-Bristow, 38, and Benjamin Murphy, 37, wore masks that made them look like old men when they robbed the store in Epping, Essex, in...

Dog Lived With Coyotes. Now He Sleeps in a 'Fluffy Bed'

But the custody dispute over Hades, aka Ghost, may not be over

(Newser) - The dog is a friendly bull terrier mix who became famous in the Las Vegas area for roaming with coyotes. Now he's at the center of a strange custody dispute between the women who rescued him from the wild—they know him as Ghost—and the family who says...

McDonald’s 'McCrispy' Ad Lands in Unfortunate Location

Anywhere near a crematorium is probably not a brilliant idea, guys

(Newser) - When placing advertisements near funeral homes, mortuaries, zombie meeting halls, or anything to do with the dead or undead, really, one might want to give the message that one is aware of those surroundings. That apparently failed to happen when McDonald's wanted to tout its new McCrispy chicken sandwich...

'Worst Valentine's Day Surprise Ever'

Trade analysis finds that women's underwear is taxed higher than men's

(Newser) - Typically, an economic analysis that highlights a "trade fact of the week" might not sound like the sexiest of subjects. But in this case, the factoid highlighted by Ed Gresser of the Progressive Policy Institute amounts to what he labels the "worst Valentine's Day surprise ever."...

OSHA Issues Fine Over Workers Falling Into Chocolate

Mars Wrigley receives citation categorized as serious

(Newser) - The Mars Wrigley Confectionary in Pennsylvania has been fined over an accident in which two workers fell into a tank of chocolate. The Occupational Health and Safety Administration issued a serious citation and a penalty of more than $14,000, KHTM reports. The company didn't ensure that the two...

Zoo Figures Out How Gibbon Who Lived Alone Gave Birth

Japanese zookeepers suspect Momo the gibbon mated through a tiny hole

(Newser) - It was a head-scratching birth. Momo, a 12-year-old white-handed gibbon, lived alone in a cage at a Japanese zoo—and delivered a shock when she delivered a baby in February 2021. As Vice reports, zookeepers at the Kujukushima Zoo and Botanical Garden in Nagasaki couldn't figure out how Momo...

Airbnb Oddity: 700 Pounds of Acorns Stashed in Wall

A couple of very industrious critters caused a little trouble at a California rental

(Newser) - Sometimes when you walk into an Airbnb, you don't want to know what its previous occupants have been up to. And sometimes once you know, there's no unknowing. In the case of a two-story house in Glen Ellen, California, the previous occupants had been very busy, but in...

AI-Generated Seinfeld Parody Is Halted Over Trans Jokes

'Nothing, Forever' is suspended on Twitch, as creators blamed a content-filter glitch

(Newser) - A parody of Seinfeld generated by artificial intelligence and intended to run endlessly on a Twitch stream has been stopped in its tracks because of transphobic lines. On Monday, the Jerry-like animated character in Nothing, Forever likened being trans to having a mental illness, among other lines, and Twitch pulled...

Funeral Home Staff Unzipped a Body Bag, Got Quite a Shock

Woman who'd been declared dead at Iowa continuing care facility was actually still alive

(Newser) - At least four people who were sure a woman with early-onset dementia at a continuing care home in Iowa had passed away didn't get it right, and the facility is now facing a hefty fine. ABC News reports on the incident out of Urbandale, where the 66-year-old in hospice...

Woman's Close Encounter With Boulder Has Hearts Pounding

Giant rock came crashing through her Oahu home, narrowly missing her

(Newser) - A woman on the Hawaiian island of Oahu got a most terrifying welcome to her new home. Caroline Sasaki was walking into the living room over the weekend when a huge crash shocked her and her family members: A 5-by-5-foot boulder had barreled down a hill and right through the...

Bird Charity's Account Frozen After Tweet About Woodcock

It took 8 days to get back in

(Newser) - Researchers noted a rise in "hate speech, antisemitic posts, and other troubling content" in the wake of Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter—and yet those seemingly loosened posting parameters were apparently still too tough for the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). Yes, that's a bird conservation charity,...

Cars Drive Around Barriers, Get Stuck in California Sinkhole

CHP 'at a loss for words'

(Newser) - Drivers who ignored road closure signs in a California town ended up caught in a sinkhole, and authorities sound pretty flabbergasted with the situation. "There are concrete rails across the roadway. It takes a little bit of effort to maneuver around it to get past it," explains a...

Assistant Coach Fired After Impersonating Player, 13

'I was just shocked,' says the girl's father in Portsmouth, Virginia

(Newser) - An assistant coach for a JV girls' basketball team in Virginia is now a former assistant coach after displaying some seriously odd judgment. Arlisha Boykins, 22, pretended to be a 13-year-old and played in a game for Churchland High School in Portsmouth, Virginia, reports WAVY 10 . (See video here .)...

Firefighters Leave Stove On, Learn Important Lesson

They return to a kitchen fire at their station in Georgia

(Newser) - In their defense, the firefighters were in a hurry to leave. So much so, that nobody in the station remembered to turn off the stove when they left to fight a house fire in Hall County, Georgia, reports the Gainesville Times . When a separate fire crew that had been out...

This City's Self-Driving Cars Are Causing Oodles of 911 Calls

San Francisco logged nearly 100 emergency calls about autonomous cars in second half of 2022

(Newser) - Traffic in San Francisco was, well, weird during the last half of 2022, and fingers are being pointed at the city's autonomous vehicles. Per a Wednesday letter from the San Francisco County Transportation Authority to the California Public Utilities Commission, there were a whole lot of 911 calls (92,...

Bizarre 'Whirlpool' Appears in Hawaii's Night Sky

Strange sight apparently caused by launch of a SpaceX rocket

(Newser) - A telescope in Hawaii captured the strangest of sights: an unearthly-looking whirlpool of light spinning in the night sky. (See for yourself in this video .) Alas, Live Science quickly obliterates the magical mystery: "It turns out the stunning spiral was comprised of frozen rocket fuel that was ejected...

Boy Playing in Shipping Container Ends Up in Another Country

He entered container in Bangladesh, exited in Malaysia 6 days later

(Newser) - A 15-year-old boy apparently playing hide and seek entered a shipping container in Bangladesh ... and didn't exit until six days later, when the container had been transported to Malaysia. That's 1,600 nautical miles, or more than 1,840 miles, according to maritime tracking site FleetMon . The Malaysian...

Japanese Vending Machines Now Dispensing Whale Meat

Conservationists are worried about the development

(Newser) - A Japanese whaling operator, after struggling for years to promote its products amid protests from conservationists, has found a new way to cultivate clientele and bolster sales: whale meat vending machines. The Kujira (Whale) Store, an unmanned outlet that recently opened in the port town of Yokohama near Tokyo, houses...

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